NuGet CLI environment variables

The behavior of the nuget.exe CLI can be configured through a number of environment variables, which affect nuget.exe on computer-wide, user, or process levels. Environment variables always override any settings in NuGet.Config files, allowing build servers to change appropriate settings without modifying any files.

In general, options specified directly on the command line or in NuGet configuration files have precedence, but there are a few exceptions such as FORCE_NUGET_EXE_INTERACTIVE. If you find that nuget.exe behaves differently between different computers, an environment variable could be the cause. For example, Azure Web Apps Kudu (used during deployment) has NUGET_XMLDOC_MODE set to skip to speed up package restore performance and save disk space.

The NuGet CLI uses MSBuild to read the project files. All environment variables are available as properties during the MSBuild evaluation. The list of properties documented in NuGet pack and restore as MSBuild targets can also be set as environment variables.

Variable	Description	Remarks
http_proxy	Http proxy used for NuGet HTTP operations.	This would be specified as http://<username>:<password>@proxy.com.
no_proxy	Configures domains to bypass from using proxy.	Specified as domains separated by comma (,).
EnableNuGetPackageRestore	Flag for if NuGet should implicitly grant consent if that's required by package on restore.	Specified flag is treated as true or 1, any other value treated as flag not set.
NUGET_CLI_LANGUAGE	Changes nuget.exe output language	Available in 6.5 and higher versions. Supported values are supported Visual Studio languages locale names: zh-cn, zh-tw, cs-cz, en-us, es-es, fr-fr, de-de, it-it, ja-jp, ko-kr, pl-pl, pt-br, ru-ru, and tr-tr.
NUGET_EXE_NO_PROMPT	Prevents the exe for prompting for credentials.	Any value except null or empty string will be treated as this flag set/true.
NUGET_MAX_RETRY_AFTER_DELAY_SECONDS	Maximum duration between retries when HTTP response contains Retry-After header	When NUGET_OBSERVE_RETRY_AFTER is enabled (as it is by default) and an HTTP response contains a Retry-After header, this environment variable sets the maximum duration that will be waited. Note that Retry-After can provide either a duration (delta) or a time stamp (date). If the server returns a time stamp and your machine's clock is out of sync with the server, the calculated duration might be very long (or negative).
FORCE_NUGET_EXE_INTERACTIVE	Global environment variable to force interactive mode.	Any value except null or empty string will be treated as this flag set/true.
NUGET_PACKAGES	Path to use for the global-packages folder as described on Managing the global packages and cache folders.	Specified as absolute path.
NUGET_FALLBACK_PACKAGES	Global fallback packages folders.	Absolute folder paths separated by semicolon (;).
NUGET_HTTP_CACHE_PATH	Path to use for the http-cache folder as described on Managing the global packages and cache folders.	Specified as absolute path.
NUGET_OBSERVE_RETRY_AFTER	Opt-out of using HTTP response message Retry-After delay durations	Prior to NuGet 6.5, NuGet would retry all failed requests with the same back-off strategy. Starting with NuGet 6.5, NuGet will by default use the Retry-After delay period provided by the server. Set this environment variable to false to ignore the Retry-After response header. Also see NUGET_MAX_RETRY_AFTER_DELAY_SECONDS
NUGET_RESTORE_MSBUILD_ARGS	Sets additional MSBuild arguments.	Pass arguments identical to how you would pass them to msbuild.exe. An example of setting a project property Foo from the command line to value Bar would be /p:Foo=Bar
NUGET_RETRY_HTTP_429	Change retry behavior on HTTP 429 responses	Prior to NuGet 6.5, NuGet would not retry requests that result in HTTP 429 on 408. The default value is true, and this environment variable can be set to false to opt-in to older NuGet behaviour (don't retry the request)
NUGET_RESTORE_MSBUILD_VERBOSITY	Sets the MSBuild log verbosity.	Default is quiet ("/v:q"). Possible values q[uiet], m[inimal], n[ormal], d[etailed], and diag[nostic].
NUGET_SHOW_STACK	Determines whether the full exception (including stack trace) should be displayed to the user.	Specified as true or false (default).
NUGET_UPDATEFILETIME_MAXRETRIES	Sets the number of times NuGet will attempt to set the file timestamp when extracting packages.	On Windows anti-virus software might temporarily open files, preventing NuGet from changing the timestamp. NuGet uses an exponential back-off where the wait duration between attempts is Math.Pow(2, retryNumber). The default max retries is 9, meaning the default total wait duration before failure will be approximately one second.
NUGET_XMLDOC_MODE	Determines how assemblies XML documentation file extraction should be handled.	Supported modes are skip (do not extract XML documentation files), compress (store XML doc files as a zip archive) or none (default, treat XML doc files as regular files).
NUGET_CERT_REVOCATION_MODE	Determines how the revocation status check of the certificate used to sign a package, is performed when a signed package is installed or restored. When not set, defaults to online.	Possible values online (default), offline. Related to NU3028
NUGET_ENABLE_ENHANCED_HTTP_RETRY	Enables or disables enhanced HTTP retry in NuGet.	Possible values are true (default) or false.
NUGET_ENHANCED_MAX_NETWORK_TRY_COUNT	Configures the maximum number of times an HTTP connection should be retried when enhanced retries are enabled.	A number representing how many retries to perform, the default value is 6.
NUGET_ENHANCED_NETWORK_RETRY_DELAY_MILLISECONDS	Configures the amount of time to wait in milliseconds before retrying an HTTP connection when enhanced retries are enabled.	Number of millseconds to wait, the default value is 1000.
NUGET_EXPERIMENTAL_USE_NJ_FOR_FILE_PARSING	Determines whether or not Netwonsoft.Json is used for parsing the assets file during restore	Possible values are true or false (default).